Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/249

 COMPARISON OF SOME VIEWS OF SPENCEB AND KANT. 235 existence of space must be imagined then, if we are to conceive space to be generated by the action of some other entity ("onto- logical order ") on our minds or brain-consciousness. Perhaps Mr. Spencer may reply : we cannot conceive this, and yet it may be possible. But Mr. Spencer considers he has proved it apparently : as he affirms distinctly (not as a mere hypothesis) "There is some ontological order whence arises the phenomenal order we know as Space " (loc. cit. sup.). And again " All we can assert is, that Space is a relative reality". 1 "Our conception of Space is produced by some mode of the Unknowable " (First Principles, p. 165). According to the author then, Space is not an absolute existence, or it is not something that exists independently of brain- consciousness (mind). In spite of this, on p. 49 in his criticism of Kant's idea, Mr. Spencer remarks as follows : " The question here is What does consciousness directly testify ? And the direct testimony of consciousness is, that Time and Space are not within but without the mind ; and so absolutely indepen- dent of it that they cannot be conceived to become non-existent even were the mind to become non-existent " (First Principles, p. 49). But if Space be " absolutely independent " of mind which Mr. Spencer affirms to be " the direct testimony of consciousness " how can Space be " a relative reality " as he states it is (at p. 165). For, by very definition, "relative" means related to mind, and not independent of mind ? How reconcile what seems to be an open contradiction ? And the author's statement in his Principles of Psychology, vol. i., may be here appended in full : " More certain, then, than the Eelativity of Eelations as we conceive them, is the existence of Non-relative Forms to which they refer ; since proof of the first involves perpetual assumption of the last. There is some ontological order whence arises the phenomenal order we know as Space " (p. 227). 1 This passage quoted in full is : " All we can assert is that Space is a relative reality ; that our consciousness of this unchanging relative reality implies an absolute reality equally unchanging in so far as we are concerned ; and that the relative reality may be unhesitatingly accepted in thought as a valid basis for our reasonings; which, when rightly carried on, will bring us to truths that have a like relative reality the only truths which concern us or can possibly be known to us " (First Principles, p. 1(55). This distinctly implies therefore that what we know as Space is a phenomenon or effect produced by the action on consciousness of some unknown cause or absolute entity. In a parallel way to this, Kant regarded Space as a phenomenon. He says, for example : " We can then only talk of Space or of extended being from Man's point of view. If we leave out of account the subjective condition under which alone we can have external perception (however we may be affected by objects) ; then the presentation (' Vorstellung') we have of Space means nothing at all " (Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Verlag von Philipp Reclain, Leipzig, p. 55, translation of passage).